Football: a
a close call
in Abingdon
NEWS from English football. Abingdon United were were 8-0 up on rivals Abingdon Town, according to Reuters.. Then came half-time. After the break, United came back on the field but nobody else came out of the changerooms.
Abingdon Town had scarpered, leaving their kit behind. They'd had enough. They couldn't face the prospect of double figures.
Okay, this match was in the 10th tier of English football but you do expect a bit more grit.
"In my 30 years of football I've never known anything like that to happen," United secretary John Blackmore said. "The game started off fine, there was no nastiness or anything like that, but we were 8-0 up at half-time and then their manager and players didn't come out for the second half."
It reminds me oddly of something that happened in rugby in days of yore. We (Maritzburg Collegians) used to play the Durban and Maritzburg clubs plus the country towns – Greytown, Mooi River, Howick, Ixopo and so on. Our bete noire in this division were Cato Ridge, a bunch of very tough hombres, most of them from a steel mill. Cato Ridge matches never lacked fire and fury.
This particular Saturday we were playing Varsity at Woodburn. At half-time we noticed another match just starting on the next field – Cato Ridge against another club.
When we'd finished and showered we strolled across to watch our fearsome adversaries, who we were due to face next weekend. But, how very odd – the field was deserted. They should have had at least 30 minutes still to play.
Had their opponents done an Abingdon Town and not come back again after half-time?
Er, no. The game had been such a bloodbath that the ref called it off and reported Cato Ridge to the rugby sub-union, who suspended them for the rest of the season. So we got a bye and walkover points. So easy.
Yes, the lower divisions of sport have their quirkiness.
Beggars
DURBAN poet Joan Truscott pens some compassionate lines on our beggar population:
As I go around the streets of our city
I am so filled with pity.
On many corners stands a lad
He looks so hopeless and sad.
His legs like matchsticks his body emaciated thin
He holds out an old rusty tin.
His eyes are pleading help me they say
Just do an act of kindness today.
My existence is full of heartbreaking strife
I have been hard done by life.
Motorists shake their heads as they drive by
Such a nuisance these beggars they sigh.
If you give them money they use it for drugs or drink
Do these drivers ever stop to think
Why these beggars have stooped so low?
No one to care for them, nowhere to go.
Dressed in rags their stomachs empty
They gaze wistfully at those that have plenty.
When cold winds blow they stand and shiver
Their skeletal bodies shake and quiver.
They crave a brighter future
Someone to love them, someone to nurture.
What is the answer I cannot tell you
What can we possibly do?
All I know when I see these beggars my heart bleeds
Neither you or I can fulfill their needs.
Don't despise them utter a prayer
For those downtrodden standing there.
Tailpiece
THE fellow who invented predictive text has died. His funfair is next week.
Last word
It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth. - George Burns
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